N. Union Avenue in Alliance to reopen next week

A state project to lower Union Avenue beneath a railroad track overpass is about finished.

Malcolm Hall CantonRep.com staff writer @mhallREP

After being closed for nearly 10 months, N. Union Avenue is expected to open next week as a major road-lowering project concludes.

The construction project, administered by the Ohio Department of Transportation, lowered the grade of N. Union Avenue under a railroad track overpass.

As a result of the project, large freight-hauling trucks should be able to travel under the Norfolk Southern Railway overpass without risk of getting stuck.

"The total clearance under the bridge will be 14 feet," Brent Kovacs, an ODOT public relations officer, said. "We lowered it a foot and a half. We did a bunch of drainage work there, sidewalk improvements."

Union Avenue also is state Route 183. The road is a north-south artery that passes through the downtown area.

Marucci & Gaffney Excavating of Youngstown was the prime contractor on the $4.5 million project, which started in late January.

While ODOT officials expect to reopen N. Union Avenue next week, "we don't have a specific day locked down yet," Kovacs said.

Each day, about 12,400 motorists travel Union Avenue in this location, according to public traffic-count estimates.

"In Alliance, it is one of the most traveled roads," said Dan Slicker of the Stark County Area Transportation Study. "The only other one larger in volume would be State Street."

To accommodate the road-lowering project, N. Union Avenue was closed for about a fourth of a mile north of Main Street.